The Small Speedmaster Is Thicker Than the Big One

30/09/2026

Omega has replaced its entire Speedmaster 38 collection with seven new models, and the interesting part of this launch is the thing Omega did not change.

The new watches are 38mm across and 14.75mm thick. The actual Moonwatch, the one that went to the moon, is 42mm across and about 13.2mm thick. So the small Speedmaster is four millimetres narrower and roughly a millimetre and a half taller than the full-size one, which means the watch marketed as the compact option stands higher off your wrist than the original.

People have been asking Omega to fix this for years. Omega has now redesigned the dials, the bezel, the bracelet and the text, and left the height exactly where it was. There is a reason for that, and it sits underneath the dial.

Source: Hodinkee.com

The Movement Decides Everything

A chronograph movement is built around its layout. The running seconds, the elapsed minutes and the elapsed hours each need a wheel underneath them, and those wheels sit where the architecture of the calibre puts them. A watch designer does not get to move a subdial for aesthetic reasons. He gets to draw a dial around wherever the movement has already decided the pinions come through.

The calibre here is the 3330, an automatic Co-Axial chronograph with a column wheel and a silicon balance spring, and it is a good movement. It was designed for a larger case. When you drop it into 38mm, two things happen, and both of them are visible on the dial.

The subdials end up pushed outward, close to the edge, sitting low and wide where a balanced dial would want them higher. And the case has to be tall enough to contain a self-winding chronograph with a column wheel and a Co-Axial escapement, all of which are stacked vertically. The automatic winding sits on one side, the chronograph mechanism on the other, and the escapement takes more vertical room than a standard lever does. You end up at 14.75mm whether the case is 42mm wide or 38mm.

Width is a design choice. Height is arithmetic.

Source: Omega.com

The Oval Subdials Were a Cover-Up

The previous generation tried to hide all of this. Omega made the subdials oval, stretched to fill the awkward space and to make the outward positioning look deliberate. It worked at a glance and fell apart the moment you looked properly, because everyone knows a subdial is round.

The new models drop the ovals and let the subdials sit where the movement puts them. That is the real story of this update. Omega stopped disguising the problem and started owning it, which is almost always the better decision, and the dials are calmer for it.

Source: Omega.com

The rest of the dial got the same treatment. Less printed text, an applied Omega logo at twelve instead of a printed one, and a proper wide bezel insert in place of the narrow one. There is even a dot over the ninety on the tachymeter scale, which is a small piece of collector bait. On certain vintage Speedmaster bezels the dot on the scale sits above the ninety instead of beside it, and those references trade at a premium because of it. Omega has now put that detail on a new watch, and every Speedmaster obsessive who sees it will know exactly what it is referring to.

They Have Been Trying This Since 1988

This is Omega's second attempt at a small Speedmaster and the second time it has come out thick.

The first was the Speedmaster Reduced, launched in 1988 at 39mm, which ran an automatic base movement with a chronograph module bolted on top. Stacking a module on a base calibre adds height by definition, so the Reduced was also a tall watch, and it also had subdials that sat where the module put them. It was discontinued around 2009 and then became a cult object, partly because it was the only Speedmaster a normal wrist could wear.

Omega has now spent nearly forty years trying to make a small Speedmaster, and both times the movement has decided the outcome. The way out is a new calibre built for this case, and that has not happened yet.

What You Can Buy

Three are steel. There is a matte black dial with a black aluminium insert and no date window, which looks most like a Moonwatch and is the best watch in the group. There is a glossy white lacquered dial with a blue ceramic bezel, and a silver dial with a grey insert and gold-coloured hands and markers. They cost $6,500, $7,100 and $6,700 in that order.

Source: Omega.com

Two mix in solid gold on the bezel, pushers, crown and bracelet links, one with an ivory dial and brown subdials, one with silver opaline and green, both at $11,700. Two more carry diamond-set bezels at $12,300 and $13,100.

The bracelet is new and better, a shrunken version of the current five-link Moonwatch bracelet with the comfort release clasp, which gives you two extra positions and 2.3mm of adjustment on the fly. That sounds trivial until summer arrives and your wrist swells, at which point it is the most useful feature on the watch.

Water resistance is 100 metres, the movement is chronometer certified, and power reserve is 52 hours, which is short by current standards and normal for this calibre.

What I Would Do

If you want a Speedmaster and 42mm does not fit you, buy the black no-date version at $6,500. It is the cleanest of the seven, it costs the least, and losing the date window is a gain on a dial this busy.

If your objection to the Moonwatch was thickness, this does not solve your problem and buying it will annoy you. The full-size Moonwatch is thinner, costs roughly the same money, has the hand-wound movement with the history attached, and is the watch you want. Go and put both on before you decide, because 38mm by 14.75mm feels different from what those numbers suggest, and it feels different on every wrist.

And if you were waiting for Omega to finally thin this thing down, keep waiting. That fix needs a new movement, not a new dial.